


Wasting Time

by mcfair_58



Category: Bonanza
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:48:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27479056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcfair_58/pseuds/mcfair_58
Summary: Marie Cartwright teaches her step-son and husband a lesson in time.
Kudos: 2





	Wasting Time

Wasting Time

“Where is that boy? Our reservation is at six. He’s always wasting time!”  
“Mon cher, be patient. He will be here.”  
The toe of Ben Cartwright’s tooled leather boot was tapping. He glanced at his wife. Marie’s hand was on his arm. He noted the hand and then the slender arm – that led up to the pale white skin exposed at the shoulder of her dress. It was almost enough to make him forget how annoyed he was with his son.  
Almost.   
“If he’s forgotten….”  
“How could Adam have forgot, Pa?” Hoss asked. “How could anyone forget their own birthday party?”  
“How indeed?” Ben grumbled.   
They were sitting on the porch of the Reisen House. The four of them had come into town earlier and gone their separate ways. He had business to attend to, Hoss had an invitation to play with a friend, and Marie was going to visit Paul Martin and his wife. Paul wasn’t the town doctor, but he was their doctor. Marie hadn’t been feeling well and he was concerned. She insisted he was too concerned, but as the man of the house he insisted she stop by and let Paul take a look at her before going to the dress shop and the millinery…and the perfumery...and the jeweler and….  
“What was that, mon cher?” his beautiful wife asked.  
Ben stifled a second sigh and patted her hand. “Nothing, my love.”  
“You want I should go look for Adam?” Hoss asked.   
He barely caught the boy’s collar in time to stop him. “No, son, I –”  
“I will look for Adam,” Marie declared. “You will take Hoss for an orange ice? Non?”  
She phrased it as a question, but he knew better.   
“Gee, Pa! Can I have one? Can I?” His son’s grin was broad and already showed a gap. “Or maybe two?”  
“Marie,” he cautioned, “we came here to have supper.”  
She was barely bigger than his boy, but his New Orleans’ bride was a force to be reckoned with. Marie’s hand touched his chin. That slender arm wrapped around his waist, while her bare shoulder brushed the exposed skin of his chest.  
“Mon cher,” she breathed as her lips brushed the skin beside his mouth. “You must not scowl so.”  
“I’ll eat supper, Pa!” Hoss announced cheerfully. “Them little ices will barely fill my toes!”  
Ben looked down – a little. His youngest son, five-years-old and already nearly five feet tall, had a capacity for food that easily outpaced that of a full table of ravenous ranch hands.   
“I promise, Pa!”  
“You heard your son,” Marie breathed – in his ear this time. “Hoss promises. Just as I promise to find our other son and deliver him…on time.”  
Her lips lingered on his and then, she released him.  
If Napoleon had had her, he would have triumphed at Waterloo. 

Had Adam been any other boy, Marie would have been worried.   
Her stepson was, after all, not quite twelve. In a rough and tumble town like Gold Hill, many things could happen to such an innocent; some of his own choosing and others, out of his control. Just the season before a young man near Adam’s age had gone missing, taken by another to work his land as an indentured servant. A month ago one of the Jones’ boys had fallen in with men of ill-repute and been used as a decoy to execute a robbery. She knew her husband feared such things, but they would not happen to Adam. Her step-son was, sadly, wise and wary beyond his tender years. Adam was a lonely boy in many ways; his wounds deep and without words. It had taken her the better part of a year to get him to smile.  
She had yet to win his trust.  
As she pushed the door open, the owner of the mercantile looked up from his paperwork and smiled. He rolled his bright blue eyes over and inclined his head toward the back of the store. Marie peered over his shoulder before reaching into her reticule purse. She drew a few coins from it and placed them on the counter. The shopkeeper grinned. He took the money and handed her a tissue-wrapped parcel, which she quickly hid before rounding the counter and heading to the back of the building.   
There were many things in a dry goods store – mounds of feed sacks, cartons of seed packets, tools, rope, and twine. There was a separate counter with candy, and shelves of baked goods next to which a mountain of canned fruit and vegetables soared toward the tin ceiling. All practical items Adam’s father would have approved of and considered necessary for survival. Marie passed them by. She would not find her stepson there. While these thing would sustain his papa, they would not provide the sustenance the boy needed.   
“Mon savant,” she said as she halted beside the shelf that contained the meager collection of books which served as the settlement’s only library.  
My scholar.  
The boy’s sheepish grin delighted her soul.

Her husband had been stern when they arrived, correcting the boy about his lack of punctuality and thoughtlessness in keeping them waiting. Though there were presents and laughter during their meal, the ride home was a quiet one. It was in the wee hours of the morning that Marie crept down the stair to find Ben’s dark-haired boy seated before the fire. She went to him and touched his hand before heading for the settee.   
“I’m sorry,” he began. “I didn’t mean to be late. I just….”  
“Got lost?” she finished with a smile as she sat down.  
Adam nodded.   
Marie reached into her reticule and withdrew the item wrapped in tissue and handed it to him. Since his papa had been in a ‘mood’, she’d decided to wait to give him his present.  
The boy’s soulful eyes asked it for him as he accepted the gift. ‘What’s this?’  
She nodded, indicating he should proceed.  
Adam drew in a breath when he saw what the package contained. He looked at her with incredulity and surprise, and then back at the glistening pocket watch.  
“Open the case, mon savant,” she said.   
She’d had the watch inscribed. Marie observed her stepson’s lips as they read what she had written.   
‘The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.’  
She rose and went to him and kissed him on the head. He caught her hand before she could go.  
“Thank you…Mama.”  
In other words, anything important was worth the time it took.   
_____  
END


End file.
